Deadly fighting erupts in border city
Reynosa sees several outbursts of violence after relative calm
A wave of deadly gunfights between Mexican authorities and drug cartels has swept across the border city of Reynosa, with violence spilling into the streets. The city has no police force; it was disbanded due to corruption. Masked Tamaulipas State Police officers patrol the streets.
REYNOSA , Mexico — A wave of deadly gunfights between Mexican authorities and drug cartels has swept across this border city in recent days, with violence spilling into the streets and at one point forcing terrified residents to seek shelter behind shop counters.
After two days of skirmishes, violence erupted again on Wednesday with marines in a helicopter firing on criminal groups in one area of the city, while marines in a separate incident clashed with cartel members in a mall, trapping hundreds of people inside amid the melee.
“It was crazy,” said the owner of a store inside the mall, which is anchored by the popular Soriana supermarket. The woman declined to give her name, saying she feared for her safety. “People were jumping behind my counter. I found one person hiding in my office.”
For nearly two hours the mall was locked down as the gunbattle raged through the late afternoon. The store owner had planned to attend the signing of a sister-city agreement between McAllen and Reynosa; instead, she was caught inside, paralyzed with fear.
The fight that began on the street burst into the mall unexpectedly, and to prevent anyone from escaping the exits were closed with shoppers inside, she said.
“An ambulance came, six or seven were killed,” she said, referring to the suspected cartel members. “But we don’t know for sure. The marines told us not to record or take photos, that they’d be searching each store for the bad ones.”
Mexican authorities reported at least ten criminals killed Monday and Tuesday, but no deaths were reported for Wednesday.
The store owner isn’t the only one who fears for her safety and that of her family.
Residents across the city are increasingly concerned about the continued violence breaking out in populated areas, especially as the race for governor of Tamaulipas heats up.
Public safety has dominated the first month of the campaign season, with an anxious public set to vote June 5.
Baltazar Hinojosa Ochoa, the Institutional Revolutionary Party candidate for governor, was in Reynosa on Thursday to meet with leaders of the maquiladora industry in this factory town.
But for at least a half hour during his news conference, he fielded questions about the violence wreaking havoc in the state.
“It’s wearing to have these types of events,” Hinojosa acknowledged, adding, however, that he believes the military is doing its job. “What is important is that they be effective and not expose the public (to danger) unnecessarily.”
In addition to having an active military and state police presence, Hinojosa is promoting the creation of citizen groups, comprised of business and community leaders, that have been credited with helping to reduce violence in Juarez and other Mexican cities.
Hinojosa said his security plan would also include the formation of a professional police force based in the outlying colonias, which have been especially vulnerable to the influence of criminal gangs.
The city police force was disbanded by order of the federal government over corruption charges; an uneasy peace is now kept by the convoys of heavily armed military and state police that roam the city.
Tamaulipas gave rise to the vicious Gulf Cartel and the Zetas, but the toppling of crime bosses in recent years has splintered their ranks into smaller groups with shifting alliances, causing outbreaks of violence throughout the state, in small towns and large cities.
Months of relative calm ended in March as new gunbattles between rival cartel groups and authorities paralyzed areas of Reynosa, Matamoros and the capital of Ciudad Victoria.
To put a stop to the violence, the military deployed 900 troops to the troubled state, which shares nearly 350 miles of border with South Texas.